1. Technical Field
This invention relates to semiconductor packaging in general, and in particular, to making low-cost, thermally enhanced, chip-scale, lead-on-chip semiconductor packages.
2. Related Art
In a well-known type of semiconductor package, the back surface of a semiconductor die, or “chip,” is mounted on a metal die-attach pad contained in a substrate, e.g., a leadframe or a laminate, and surrounded by a plurality of metal leads contained therein. A plurality of fine, conductive wires are bonded between metal pads on an “active,” front surface of the chip and the metal leads in the substrate to electrically interconnect the chip and substrate. The die, wire bonds, and portions of the substrate are then encapsulated in a protective plastic body.
The metal die-attach pad in the substrate gives the package relatively good thermal performance. However, the wire bonds between the chip and the substrate result in a relatively large package size. In an effort to reduce package size, so-called “Lead-On-Chip” (“LOC”) packages were developed in which the leads of a leadframe substrate are attached to the active, upper surface of the chip and wire bonded to the pads thereon with very short wire bonds, such as described by R. P. Pashby, et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,245.
Later variations on this LOC technique include, a direct attachment between the pads on the chip and the leads in a Tape Automated Bonding (“TAB”) tape substrate, as described by K. Michii in U.S. Pat. No. 5,252,853; a “flip-chip” attachment between the pads on the chip and the leads in a metal leadframe substrate, as described by J. M. Wark in U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,540; and, a combination of short wire bonds and a flip-chip attachment between the chip pads and the leads of a leadframe substrate, as described by M. B. Ball in U.S. Pat. No. 5,917,242.
While the foregoing LOC packages achieve some reduction in package size due to the reduced size of the electrical connections between the die and the substrate, they do so at the expense of the thermal performance of the package, relative to the above packages in which the back side of the chip is attached to a metal die-attach pad in the substrate. Efforts to address this latter problem in LOC packages include etching thermal “vias,” i.e., openings, in the back side of the chips, or attaching a heat sink to the back side of the chip, as described by, e.g., C. P. Wyland in U.S. Pat. No. 5,986,885. However, these latter measures can largely offset the benefit of a reduced package size afforded by an LOC design, and in any case, add cost to the package.